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Empire State Building Shooting

Associated Press

Police investigate the shooting outside the Empire State Building on Friday morning.

Two people were killed, including the alleged gunman, when a man shot several people near the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan around 9 a.m. Friday. The suspect was a disgruntled former employee at a nearby business, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. Nine other people were injured, including some wounded by police gunfire.

Murder at New York Icon

A laid-off apparel designer gunned down a former co-worker outside the Empire State Building on Friday morning, prompting a confrontation with New York police that killed the shooter but left nine others wounded on a crowded rush-hour Manhattan sidewalk, authorities said. The bystanders were most likely wounded by police in the 9 a.m. incident in the shadow of one of the nation’s most recognizable landmarks, authorities said. All but one—a 35-year-old female tourist from North Carolina—are New York City residents. They are expected to live. Five had been discharged from the hospital Friday afternoon. Read full updated story

Video Shows Alleged Empire State Building Shooter

The New York Police Department released a video of Jeffrey Johnson walking near the Empire State Building on Friday as he is confronted by police officers after he allegedly killed a former colleague. Police Comm. Ray Kelly said when Mr. Johnson took out his gun and pointed it at officers they fired a total of more than 16 rounds, striking Mr. Johnson and killing him.

Police Dilemma Over Gun Rules

By Tamer El-Ghobashy , Chad Bray

A gunman walking the street near the Empire State Building Friday presented New York City police officers with a harrowing question for the second time in less than two weeks: Confronted by an armed suspect on a crowded Midtown street, should they open fire when bystanders are so close?

New York Police Department guidelines are purposefully vague about discharging a service weapon, experts say. Among the guidelines’ scenarios, the governing rule is that officers must make a “professional judgment” that firing their gun won’t “unnecessarily endanger innocent persons.”

Two officers on Friday fired 16 rounds at the gunman on Fifth Avenue, killing the suspect but also wounding eight city residents and a tourist who were simply passing through. The incident stood in contrast to an Aug. 11 altercation in which police fatally shot a knife-wielding man in broad daylight near Times Square without injuring pedestrians.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly defended the officers in both instances, saying acted within guidelines developed by the department on the use of deadly force. Those rules, they said, required police to act in situations where an armed suspect is threatening the lives of both the police and bystanders.

In Friday’s altercation, the gunman, Jeffrey Johnson, 58 years old, was only eight feet away from officers when he raised his pistol at them on a crowded Fifth Avenue sidewalk, Mr. Kelly said. Having viewed video surveillance of the confrontation, Mr. Kelly concluded the officers “had absolutely no choice.”

“The close proximity of the event and the fact that it’s on Fifth Avenue in the height of the tourist season, unfortunately something like that certainly is a possibility,” Mr. Kelly said of the risk of injuring pedestrians.

Mr. Johnson was declared dead at the scene. The nine bystanders suffered mostly graze wounds, police said. Five had been released from the hospital by Friday evening.

Anthony Roman, CEO of Roman & Associates, an investigations and security firm, said police receive extensive classroom and simulated training to prepare them for situations like the one that unfolded on Friday morning.

The training ranges from lessons on how to properly handle and hold a weapon to knowing the law so officers understand how far they are permitted to go to do their jobs. “When the police arrive and the shooter faces them and raises a gun, they have every right to attempt to stop the shooter,” Mr. Roman said. “Sometimes that may result in collateral damage.”

Authorities said Mr. Johnson, a laid-off women’s clothing designer, fatally shot a former co-worker, Steven Ercolino, a sales executive whom he blamed for the loss of his job about a year ago. Mr. Ercolino was declared dead at the scene around 9 a.m. outside his workplace, Hazan Import Corp., on West 33rd Street, authorities said.

Mr. Johnson then walked east for a half a block and turned the corner north onto Fifth Avenue, where he was confronted by two officers assigned to counterterrorism duty outside the Empire State Building, authorities said.

It wasn’t clear Friday evening if Mr. Johnson fired at police. Authorities said his gun—a .45-caliber semiautomatic manufactured in Spain by Star—could carry seven rounds. He fired five rounds at Mr. Ercolino, one round was still in the magazine, and another was ejected from the gun by police as a precaution, authorities said.

But it was clear from surveillance video, authorities said, that Mr. Johnson pointed a weapon at the officers from a distance of about eight feet.

“The reality of life is that police are not going to stand by and not use their guns when there is an active shooter,” said Maria Haberfield, a professor of police science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a former lieutenant with the Israeli National Police. “What’s the option? To wait for him to run out of bullets? The patrol guide aside, there has to be a measure of common sense.”

Police bullets struck Mr. Johnson at least seven times and sent bystanders scurrying for cover. Among those wounded was Robert Asika, 23, who was shot in the right arm. He was released from Bellevue Hospital.

Mr. Asika said he felt pain and fear stemming from the incident and was sure he was shot by police but held no ill will toward them.

“It just happens,” he said. “I didn’t feel bad about it, it just happens you know?”

It is rare for police in New York state to be found liable for accidentally shooting bystanders unless the victims can show the officers were reckless in how they approached the incident, legal experts say.

“The claim really boils down to whether they can show the officer was negligent in the way he handled the situation,” said Joshua Fitch, a personal-injury lawyer and a former prosecutor in the Bronx. “Was this a situation where it was unreasonable for them to discharge the guns in the manner or amount that they did?”

Sanford Rubenstein, who represented the family of Sean Bell in a police shooting in 2006, said officers aren’t supposed to unnecessarily endanger the public when they discharge their weapons.

However, the law in New York gives officers the discretion to make a judgment call about whether it is necessary to do so, he said.

“In my experience, the courts are very hesitant to find police officers and the city liable when innocent persons are struck by a police officer’s bullets,” Mr. Rubenstein said.

To limit the potential for injuring innocent bystanders, the preferred pistol for officers in an urban setting is the 9mm semiautomatic pistol, which is considered lightweight, Mr. Roman said.

“It is specifically chosen because it is the safest weapon to use in the current counterterrorism environment in a densely populated area,” he said.

Murder in Midtown

Deadly Clash Started in Workplace

By Sophia Hollander, Joseph De Avila , Jennifer Maloney

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at a news conference outside the Empire State Building following the shooting on Friday.

Getty Images

A fatal shooting near the Empire State Building on Friday was the violent culmination of a workplace dispute that had been brewing between two former co-workers for more than a year, according to interviews with colleagues, building officials and police.

Jeffrey Johnson, 58 years old, and Steven Ercolino, 41, worked together for what appears to be about six years at Hazan Import Corp., a Midtown company that designs and imports women’s apparel and accessories. But the relationship was marked by animosity, and in at least one case before Friday, a physical confrontation.

Mr. Ercolino, an account executive, was regarded by others in his building, relatives and friends as a gregarious colleague, an avid sports fan and a devoted uncle who populated a Myspace page from several years ago with photos of his arms around glamorous women.

By contrast, Mr. Johnson was lately quiet and withdrawn, neighbors said. For the past 18 months, he lived alone with cats and received few visitors at his Upper East Side apartment, prompting a neighbor to express the hope that he would someday find a girlfriend.

Last year, their lives seemed to diverge for good: Mr. Johnson was fired after a T-shirt line he designed underperformed, officials said, while Mr. Ercolino remained at the company as an account executive. Mr. Johnson, who officials said blamed Mr. Ercolino for not promoting his products aggressively enough, waited for his former colleague outside their West 33rd Street office and shot him multiple times in the head.

Mr. Johnson was killed by police as he walked away from the scene; nine bystanders were wounded in the gunfire, likely by police bullets and other shrapnel. None of the injuries were life-threatening.

The two men had clashed at least once in the past. Before Mr. Johnson was fired last year, he and Mr. Ercolino engaged in a shoving match inside an elevator, said an official with the building where Hazan Import is located.

“They had a fight,” said the official, who said he watched the security feed of the incident several times, and added that it appeared Mr. Johnson attacked first. “Steve picked that guy up by the throat and put him against the wall.”

It was unclear if charges were filed in the incident. In April 2011, both men registered complaints with police at the Midtown South Precinct, each accusing the other of making threats, police said. No restraining orders were issued.

Mr. Johnson maintained health insurance through the company, and returned to the building “periodically,” said New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne.

“We have talked to some people who said that he was not barred from returning, although there were some people who felt his presence made them uneasy,” Mr. Browne said.

Colleagues called Mr. Ercolino a constantly cheerful presence.

“Always smiling,” said Bo Tieri, who works at another company in the building. “Always happy.”

Mr. Ercolino graduated from SUNY Oneonta in 1992 with a major in business and a minor in fashion and rooted for the Mets and Jets, according to his LinkedIn profile and MySpace pages, the latter of which appeared to be last updated several years ago. Mr. Ercolino had worked at Hazan since 2005, according to his LinkedIn page. A Hazan employee who answered the phone Friday declined to comment.

He had a fondness for mafia movies, international travel and a passion for reading history, to learn from the past’s “mistakes,” he wrote. Though, he cautioned, “history does repeat itself.”

He didn’t have children, but Mr. Ercolino was an “incredible” uncle, said his sister-in-law, who gave her name as Andrea. He wrote on his MySpace page that “spending time with fam & friends most important to me.”

A man who answered the phone at Mr. Ercolino’s parents’ home in upstate Warwick declined to comment. Later, no one answered their door.

By contrast, Mr. Johnson lived alone and rarely entertained visitors, preferring to tend to his cats, said neighbors.

Mr. Johnson, who served in the Coast Guard between 1973 and 1977 before receiving an honorable discharge, moved into a second-floor apartment in a six-floor walk-up building on the East 82nd Street about 18 months ago.

He quickly assembled a consistent routine: dressing in the same brown suit “every single day,” before leaving at 8:30 a.m. to buy breakfast at McDonald’s and returning home, said building superintendent Guillermo Suarez. “He comes back, he goes upstairs and that’s the end,” Mr. Suarez said.

Mr. Johnson appeared to have a website of designs of vintage cars, motorcycles, and other transportation devices that could be ordered on a variety of items, including shirts, cards and coffee mugs. It is unclear if or when he ran that as a business.

Neighbor Gisela Casella, 72, said they greeted each other in the mornings when she took her mixed terrier Chihuahua out for a walk. Mr. Johnson would pet her dog every day but wouldn’t talk much, she said. “I would see him every morning all dressed up,” she said. “I thought he went to work every day. I didn’t know he was unemployed.”

Still, she found him polite, if distant. “I would always say he deserved a girlfriend,” she said.

Nine Injured Bystanders Are Expected to Survive

By Andrew Grossman, Sumathi Reddy

One woman was on her way to Dunkin’ Donuts for a cup of coffee when she heard the shots. Another was heading to her job as a receptionist. A man was selling tickets to go to the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

They were among the nine bystanders who were wounded when shooting erupted Friday morning on West 33rd Street. They ranged in ages from 20 to 56—four men and five women who ended up caught in the gunfire near one of Manhattan’s busiest intersections.

“It was just crazy, you know, like I was scared when I saw the whole thing,” said Robert Asika, 23 years old, who was selling tickets for City Sights when he was shot in the right elbow.

“When I woke up this morning I didn’t even feel like going to work, something told me not to go to work,” he added. “I mean it’s a job, just go, so I just went.”

All of the victims were transported to Bellevue Hospital Center and New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. Authorities said their injuries were not life-threatening and included several graze wounds, and hospital officials said six had been released by Friday evening.

All but one of the victims—a 35-year-old woman visiting from Chapel Hill, N.C.—were from the city.

Mr. Asika said he was certain that he had been wounded by police gunfire, not by Jeffrey Johnson, the suspect fatally shot after allegedly shooting to death a former co-worker.

“So I see the guy, who was in [a] suit, he pulled out a gun,” Mr. Asika said. “When he pulled out the gun…the cops shot him back. One of the cops shot me in the arm, you know, and I fell.”

Media Rosario, 43, had exited the subway moments before she was shot, said her sister-in-law, Auselis Rosario, who visited her at Bellevue.

“It’s crazy, you leave your kids, your family, and you never know when you’re coming back,” the sister-in-law said.

Erica Solar, who works as a receptionist on East 37th Street, was headed to a Dunkin’ Donuts when she heard the shots, took a few steps and realized she had been shot in the back of her left knee, according to her brother, Louis Lleras.

Christopher Collins was on his way to work at a nearby microbiology lab when the bus dropped him off earlier than usual because the area around the Empire State Building was roped off.

There, he stumbled upon his neighbor, Ms. Solar, bleeding on the ground.

“You never expect to see a friend of yours bleeding on the street,” said Mr. Collins, 44, a resident of the Woodlawn section of the Bronx.

“She was just nervous,” he recalled, saying Ms. Solar was asking questions such as: “Am I going to lose my leg? Am I going to die?”

He stayed with the mother of two, riding in the ambulance to Bellevue.

For some, the injuries from Friday’s shooting appeared minor. Mr. Asika was treated and released from Bellevue about three hours after the incident. Leaving the hospital with an aching arm, he said he felt “very very lucky” and “very blessed.”

Still, friends of some victims were concerned that so many bystanders were struck.

“It was just unfortunate,” said Rufai Mohammed, who said one of his Gray Line co-workers, Robert Neequaye was shot. “I know the police are doing their work, I’m not blaming them, but I would hope they would be a little more cautious next time.”

–Alison Fox, Melanie Grayce West and Pervaiz Shallwani contributed to this article.